Never Settle in Your Relationships

In my last few posts I’ve been talking about developing more substantial values and learning to love yourself. This topic seemed a logical next step for me to talk about. All too often people settle when it comes to those we enter into relationships with, whether they be friends or lovers. We should never allow ourselves to feel that we have to settle.

As much as it hurts for any of us to admit, many times the fake friendships and bad love affairs that we have are, at least in part, our own fault. Society and the people around us make us believe that we’re not worthy of better people, so we settle for less than what we really deserve, and end up unhappy as a result of it. We settle because we have allowed ourselves to believe that we’re not good enough.

My last post talked about learning to see the good in yourself, and learning what makes you worthy. That is an important step in learning that you deserve more than the bad people and bad relationships that you may find yourself dealing with. When you know how amazing you truly are, you realize that you deserve equally amazing people in your life. You come to know that people are wrong when they say you’re setting your standards too high, and you realize that there’s nothing wrong with reaching for the stars.

Therapists often see this “unworthy” mentality in people who have been in abusive relationships. The abused party thinks there must be something wrong with them, and they must not deserve anyone better. The therapy teaches them that the fault is on the abuser, and how building their self-esteem and idea of self-worth can keep them from repeating the cycle. However, this doesn’t just happen to people who’ve been physically abused. It can, and does, happen to all sorts of people.

If you’ve had people calling you fat, ugly, weird, poor, stupid or other hurtful names for a large portion of your life, that’s a form of abuse. That abuse changes the way you see yourself, and the way you see the world. You come to believe those horrible things as true, and it puts you into a pit where you think you can’t have anything good because you’re so unbelievably bad. You need to break the cycle and find your inner awesomeness. You need to retrain your brain to know that you are worthy of whatever and whoever it is you want in your life.

It’s sad but true that many people even end up in relationships with people that perpetuate their low self-worth. Have you ever head someone say “You won’t leave me. You could never do any better.” or “Who else would ever want someone like you?” It’s just more of that abuse, and something we all need to learn to steer clear of. Someone worthy of your heart is always going to be lifting you up, showing you how amazing you are and helping you to grow, and you’ll be doing the same for them.

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I know I’ve looked back on some of my past relationships and realized that I allowed myself to settle for less than what I wanted because I thought it was all I could get. And it’s not just relationships, it’s friendships too. We think that a certain class of people is all that we deserve, so we never try to get into the crowd we really want to be in. Or we settle for trying to make friends with the people that are around, even though we don’t like them, because we don’t think we have what it takes to find a better class of people. the truth is, it’s all a matter of learning to love yourself, and learning that you can have what you want, you just have to be willing to go without until you get it.

That right there is the hard part for many people. Even for me, I sometimes get lost in loneliness, wishing I had more people in my life. Then I remember that I’m just waiting to find the right ones, and when I do, it’ll be well worth it. Especially when it comes to love, never take what you can get just so you won’t be lonely until the right one comes along. You may have to face some loneliness, but you can take that time to keep making yourself into the most awesome you. When those right people come along, they’re going to be amazed and drawn to how incredible you are, and all the waiting will be worth it.

About Briana Blair

Artist, writer, ordained interfaith minister, Dr. of Metaphysics and passionate oddball. I love to create, and I love bringing knowledge and joy to others. I've been an artist for 35 years, a writer for 26 and a Pagan for 22. And I'm just getting started!Facebook - Twitter - Google+

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